Subscriptions

Beatdom is now three years old and has gathered quite an impressive number of fans, along with some brilliant contributors and a reputation for the best of the best of today’s Beat-centric literary criticism and Beat-inspired short-form literature.

As such I believe it is time to move forward. Beatdom has always been a non-profit entity, free of paid advertising and distributed directly by the magazine’s owner and editor.

However, this is problematic in that it creates financial restraints. In order to keep Beatdom rolling along this path it has been necessary to keep prices high. To balance that we’ve kept our material free online, and encouraged our readers to enjoy the magazine within their means – buying when they can and reading for free when they need.

From January, 2011, Beatdom will become a subscription magazine. We will soon begin accepting subscriptions from our readers for the three issues of Beatdom that we will release during 2011. The total cost for this subscription will be $40 (inc. p&p) – which is about the price of two copies of the magazine under our current business model.

As a non-profit magazine it is very difficult to raise the necessary funds to print copies in advance, however, with enough subscribers signing up as early as possible, the price of Beatdom magazine will next year be substantially lower than before – and without any cuts in quality.

This arrangement will also allow for a regular submission structure. Instead of taking submissions continually, we will have designated periods during which time certain submissions will be requested.

The first issue of the year will be released in January and we will require all submissions for this issue by the start of December 2010.

The second will be released in May, and submissions will be accepted until the start of April.

The third and final issue of the year will be released in September and all submission must be received by the beginning of August.

I am confident that this arrangement will allow Beatdom to grow – increasing our hard-copy readership and improving the quality of included material.